← Feed

Posts

• Post #2798898

  Got an obviously AI-authored email about Shareware Heroes being an "overlooked classic" that this person promises to fix through revealing the "visibility patterns" in online systems. I laughed when it praised me on how my approach to history "feels deeply human" (which it is, but what a great irony to read it in an automated email).

• Post #2798896

  This is an interesting essay on the dangers of knowledge loss and de-skilling in the era of AI coding, using the impact of the Ukraine crisis on missile manufacturing as an example of what lies ahead. The West Forgot How to Build. Now It's Forgetting Code https://techtrenches.dev/p/the-west-forgot-how-to-make-things

• Post #2207123

  A render of the chariot unit from Age of Empires that was included with the E3/June 1997 press kit for the game. (The game was in beta at the time.)

• Post #2207122

  The Age of Empires tech tree from October 1995, two years before the game came out, was already much simpler than Rick Goodman's earliest attempts to distill ancient history into a research + upgrades progression system, but still way more complex than the final version—which was rooted in the idea of "ages" in history.

• Post #2207121

  At one point the Age of Empires developers considered adding natural disasters to the game. But it wasn't consistent with their presentation of an inviting, sunshine-drenched world or their player-centric design philosophies. (On a related note, there's an anecdote in my book from Bruce Shelley about Bill Gates trying the game and asking if it's meant to be educational -- it wasn't, and Shelley had a great explanation for why.)

• Post #2207119

  Ensemble Studios founder Tony Goodman was so excited about the launch of Age of Empires that he put a banner up on the side of his house. (You'll learn why it was such a big deal to him in my new book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gabedurham/age-of-empires-how-ensemble-studios-made-history/)

• Post #2207118

  Up close and personal with a duck.

• Post #2207117

  A screenshot featured on the Age of Empires box and used in marketing for the game. The art team carefully staged the scene in the game's scenario editor then captured it in action. My new book includes a chapter on how Microsoft and Ensemble put together the packaging (including predictable MS in-fighting over branding) and how they marketed the game. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gabedurham/age-of-empires-how-ensemble-studios-made-history/

• Post #2207114

  Here are four screenshots of early dev builds for Age of Empires 1. The graphics, UI, and gameplay all went through huge amounts of iteration over 2+ years of development, and my new book recounts the journey: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gabedurham/age-of-empires-how-ensemble-studios-made-history/

• Post #2207110

  Introduced the four year old to JezzBall by way of Richard Bannister's mobile clone Green Balls. She picked it up pretty quickly and *nearly* finished three levels. It was fascinating to watch her play with a heady mix of reckless abandon and extreme caution.

• Post #2207109

  Superb essay on the violence and fascism embedded within generative AI systems, and how technology is inherently political. https://tante.cc/2026/04/21/ai-as-a-fascist-artifact/

• Post #2207108

  Just learned of this classic Australian poem *Faces in the Street* that captures much of the mood of the moment across multiple countries (and especially in Australia, where interest rates just got arbitrarily raised again), despite the poem being over 100 years old. https://www.australianculture.org/faces-in-the-street-henry-lawson/

• Post #2197617

  If I were to write a book about the history, art, and design of the LucasArts and Humongous adventure games, and their underlying SCUMM engine, based on dozens of interviews (and my usual level of in-depth research), would you buy it? My SCUMM documentary is going on hiatus and I need to decide whether to do it as a book instead.

• Post #1979095

  I did a Q&A interview about my Age of Empires book, the art of interviewing, and my history with real-time strategy games. https://bossfightbooks.com/blogs/news/q-a-with-richard-moss-author-of-age-of-empires

• Post #1022117

  This essay about refusing genAI in journalism is fantastic. Great reporting — and great writing more broadly — is irreducibly human. And not just the final prose, but rather the whole process that leads there — including ideation, research, and *every* phase of editing. https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/refusing-to-accept-big-tech-s-ai-poisoned-future-of-journalism

• Post #1021275

  My latest book is much more than the story of how Age of Empires (1) was made; it's a story of brothers, camaraderie, innovation, and dreams — the cost of chasing them, the passion that drives them, and the joy when they come true. Now available for preorder from Boss Fight Books. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gabedurham/age-of-empires-how-ensemble-studios-made-history

• Post #126607

  It's apparently seven years today since I created https://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com/, the Classic MacOS-themed website for my first book. (One day I intend to do a new version of this design and the Shareware Heroes site design — with a toggle to switch between them — for my personal site.)

• Post #84489

  Introducing my next documentary project: Passport to Adventure: The SCUMM Story. There'll be more to share in the New Year, including the synopsis I put together with help from several LucasArts fans and adventure genre experts, but for now it'd be great if you could all just read the intro post in the attached images and join the waitlist at https://scummdoc.com if it sounds like something you'd enjoy.